The Catsitter
by Dextra
Summary: Nico is in some need of money. So he does what most kids his age does for money: babysitting. Too bad he's lazy and has a phobia of cats.


Nico had his backpack slung over his shoulder and we walked down the sidewalk towards Mrs. Canine. The reason Nico was taking time out of his not so busy schedule to go to this lady's house was because he was babysitting her kids. Most people in camp knew her and warned Nico not to babysit her kids. Of course, he went anyway because Mrs. Canine gives loads of money to whoever does nice things for her. Nico was a fan of new stuff, and stuff cost money.

He rang the doorbell and waited for Mrs. Canine to answer. Hopefully her children were well behaved and cooperative, though there are rarely kids who are easy to deal with. Not to mention, Mrs. Canine is said to have seven (or more) kids running around her house, so it was probably pretty darn crazy in there.

The door creaked open to reveal a nice looking, smiling woman. She was dressed like she came from the 1920s, but who was Nico to judge? Okay, well, he never saw someone out on the streets dressed like a flapper, sparkly dress and everything, but he did see an old man in pink spandex on the way over here. That's really weird, right?

"Oh, you must be Nico," Mrs. Canine said in a strangely creepy voice. She opened the door wider and stepped aside a little to make room for Nico "Come in! Let me show you my little darlings."

She lead Nico down the a hallway, which had walls just cluttered with junk. It was like she saved every piece of trash she ever had, and carefully arranged the pieces on the walls, on shelves, tables, the floor, the toilet, and a bunch of other peculiar places. There was a few times where Nico almost fell flat on his face, there was so much garbage on the floor.

After stepping over mounds of trash, the two finally made it the living room, where Nico was surprisingly faced with a stuffed deer head. Its mouth of hanging open as if it was just as shocked as Nico. The even more shocking scene before Nico was the countless amount of cats just prowling around on the furniture.

The room smelled like cat pee and it was simply revolting. Nico gaged slightly once he got a whiff of it, and that's saying something since Nico has made visits to the Underworld, where it smells like dead people, and Hades's gym socks. He had been working out lately, but there hasn't been any improvements.

"Well, here are my babies," Mrs. Canine said, totally oblivious to Nico's disgusted reaction. Honestly, Nico has never incountered something so nasty. Years worth of cat pee were definitely the grossest thing he has ever seen...er smelled.

"Um, Mrs. Canine, those are cats," Nico pointed out.

"No they're not!" Mrs. Canine shouted on the top of her lungs. Some of the trash on the walls even rattled a bit. She had a deranged look on her face and Nico held his hands up in front of his face.

"Okay, okay, they're not cats." Nico backed away from her, but she started to calm down once Nico "agreed" with her.

"Don't let any of the precious babies stay up past nine. Dinner is already made. It just needs to be warmed up and can be found in the refrigerator. You also need to stroke each one's fur every hour on the hour, or they'll get cranky. And whatever you do, don't give them sugar. Sugar makes them crazy." Mrs. Canine shuddered at the thought of the last statement. Who gives their cats sugar anyway?

"Alright," responded Nico, simply. Only because he was afraid Mrs. Canine would have another episode. She smiled sweetly, patted his head and started to climb over the trash back to the front door.

"I'll be back in three hours," she called once she managed to heave herself over a life size doll of Elvis Presley. Mrs. Canine gave one final wave before Nico lost sight of her in the piles of garbage.

Nico turned his head back towards the cats once the crazy lady was gone. He had no idea what he had just got himself into. No wonder the people back at camp warned him not to her house. There was no way Nico was going to be able to make it through those three hours, he was just a lazy person.

He let out a sigh. There was no where to sit because all the seats were either occupied with trash or a cat. Instead, Nico decided to snoop through Mrs. Canine's stuff. It took some effort to get some of the drawers she had open. In the first desk he looked in, he found a picture of what looked like a younger Mrs. Canine, and there was a caption below it.

_Me before I went crazy_

Actually, to be honest, she looked more normal now than she did in the picture. Nico was getting bored with Mrs. Canine's stuff, that was until he saw she had a phone hanging on the wall. He wasn't sure if monsters could track calls made from land lines like they do from a cell phone call, but what the Hades? Why not?

Nico picked up the phone off the receiver and dialed Percy Jackson's house phone. It rang a few times before Percy picked up.

"Percy! I'm at Mrs. Canine's house, and there's giant mutant cats! If you don't hurry they're going to resurrect Kronos," Nico said in a fake distressed voice. There was silence on the other end, and Nico, confused now, hanged up the phone. Though, not five minutes late, Percy came bursting through the trash with Riptide in hand.

"Where's the mutant cats?" Percy asked and looked around.

"How did you get here so fast?"

"I live next door to Mrs. Canine. Why do you think my mom wants to move so badly?" Percy responded. "Where are the cats?"

"Oh, right there." Nico pointed to the smelly cats on the furniture. "They're your problem now."

Nico quickly moved towards one of the windows and cracked it open. He leaped out of the broken window to the outside. Too bad he didn't know they were on the second floor.

Percy stuck his head out the window and saw Nico laying on the ground with broken limps. He shook his head and went back inside.

"What a loser." Percy walked downstairs and out the door, leaving Nico in the backyard.

* * *

**A/N: As you can see, Dextra was once again very bored this week. I know it's a little out of character and "unrealistic". You can leave constructive criticism if you want to on any thing else you see. Like grammar. "Hint hint" I'm really bad with grammar.**

**Thanks for reading!**


End file.
